Julie and Julia

Editorial

This biographical comedy-drama also tells us that anyone can find themselves and fulfilment with a little determination and joie de vivre. It is based on two sources: Julie Powell's blog-to-book chronicle Julie & Julia: My Year Of Cooking Dangerously, and the rich memoir, My Life In France, by the first and foremost celebrity chef, Julia Child.

In the early '60s, Child revolutionised American grub with her influential television series. A giant (6' 2"), eccentric and beloved personality, she became an institution through to the '90s. And in 2002, Amy Adams's Julie, a stressed civil servant in post-9/11 redevelopment admin, finds a creative outlet cooking for her sweet hubby (Chris Messina) in their teeny kitchen in Queens.

Determined for once to finish something she's started, Julie sets herself the challenge of working her way through Child's Mastering The Art Of French Cooking — over 500 recipes — in exactly one year. It's to be a learning experience that impacts on her life beyond the kitchen. And, encouraged by her husband, she blogs about her trials.

Adams is, as ever, comely and endearing, even while her half of the film is a decidedly Bridget Jones-y story of exaggerated anxieties. The meatier end is the period trip down memory lane in post-War Paris with Meryl Streep's stupendous Julia and Stanley Tucci as her doting diplomat husband, Paul.

Having met working in wartime intelligence, they married and enjoy the sophisticated palates of the well-travelled. Their shared pleasure in nosh prompts Julia to enrol at the Cordon Bleu school, where a woman, and an American one at that, is an oddity barely tolerated. Her determination to succeed and wow the Frenchies at their own game tests her mettle and proves her liberation. Streep is to die for, so funny, so touching, so brilliant.

Angie Errigo